Story from the Field: Emusanda Health Center Computer Literacy Success

Emusanda Health Centre is a dispensary owned by Kenya’s Ministry of Health and serves 1500-2000 patients a month in Shibuli Kakamega, Kenya. The center offers many basic health services such as comprehensive care, diagnostic services, preventive health services, curative and clinical services and they also monitor growth in children below 5 years and do immunization in the community. The staff of this facility is a dedicated team and work tirelessly to ensure their patients get quality medical care and necessary information. Since Emusanda Health Centre is a busy facility that does not only treat but also does community outreach, maternal health care and Comprehensive care, use of computers is very important for its staff, not only for data management but also for communication and outreach.

Before the arrival of FSD intern Anthony Nicola Schneider, the Emusanda staff had little or no computer literacy skills and data storage capabilities. Even though they had desktops in their offices, the machines were not put to good use because of the limited computer skills among staff. Anthony saw this need and took the challenge of leading computer classes with emphases on Microsoft Word, Microsoft Publisher, and Microsoft Excel. The staff of Emusanda was so excited and signed up for the classes which were scheduled at different hours to allow them to cover their shifts. Some of the staff members asked for assignment from Anthony to help them practice more during their own free time so that they can perfect their skills. I personally attended the Microsoft Publisher class and was happy to learn a lot of skills from Anthony, I am glad I did not miss it. The Emusanda staff can now manage their data well, create and print brochures for awareness and even exchange mails with each other. Is that not amazing? This change has so much impact not only on the staff of Emusanda Health Centre but also to the entire Shibuli community. Thank you, Anthony, for making this a success!

Anthony was a student from Duke university who interned with FSD and Emusanda Health Centre in 2016. Want to get involved? Check out our health-focused internships here.

This article was written by Susan Mulyanga, FSD Kakamega Local Program Coordinator